Anne Shannon Monroe: The story is pretty well in my mind from beginning to end before I begin to write it, but it always follows out little by-paths in coming to its end, of which I had no knowledge: I am as interested as any reader could be to see how it is going to work its way through. I follow the story, try to keep up with it, but never dictate to it, never interfere. After it's well started my hands are off. I revise four and five times,—sometimes more: the longer I write, the more I revise.
L. M. Montgomery: I map everything out in advance. When I have developed plot, characters and incidents in my mind I write out a "skeleton" of the story or book. In the case of a book, I divide it into so many "sections"—usually eight or nine—representing the outstanding periods in the story. In each section I write down what characters are necessary, what they do, what their setting is, and quite a bit of what they say. When the skeleton is complete I begin the actual writing, and so thoroughly have I become saturated with the story during the making of the skeleton that I feel as if I were merely describing and setting down something that I have actually seen happening, and the clothing of the dry bones with flesh goes on rapidly and easily. This does not, however, prevent changes taking place as I write. Sometimes an incident I had thought was going to be very minor assumes major proportions or vice versa. Sometimes, too, characters grow or dwindle contrary to my first intentions. But on the whole I follow my plan pretty closely and the ending is very often written out quite fully in the last "section" before a single word of the first chapter is written. I revise very extensively and the "notes" with which my completed manuscript is peppered are surely and swiftly bringing down my typist's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. But these revisions deal only with descriptions and conversation. Characters, plot and incidents are never changed.
Frederick Moore: I map it out in advance, but I rarely follow the first planning. However, the ending is most vital—and it is only now and then that I use the end I started with; for instance, I once plotted a short story which I expected would not run more than three thousand words—and wound up with a novel a year later which totaled one hundred thousand words. I revise to the extent that I feel a story is never done. I had eight drafts of the novel referred to above by the time I thought it fit to submit to an editor. Six drafts on a short story gets the job into workmanlike condition—but the editor sees only the few pages of complete story.
Talbot Mundy: I hardly ever map out in advance. My right hand hardly ever knows what the left is doing. But I'm not convinced that this is good. Just as an artist usually maps out his canvas in advance, without actually seeing the finished picture, so I believe that it will usually pay the writer to fix at least certain definite landmarks for his guidance.
Order is heaven's first law.
I write the story straightaway as a whole. The end is never in view (or almost never) when I first begin. But I am beginning to believe that (for me at any rate) that is an important formula—Visualize the end of the story first. It is certainly a prime essential of drama to provide a clear view of the main character just at the close; and I think that principle underlies story-writing. The writer should have in mind throughout a clear view of his main character as he will be at the story's end. The point had not occurred to me until I commenced this answer; but the more I study it the more strongly it convinces. That, and be concrete all through the piece.
Kathleen Norris: I map it out completely in advance, even to the words, and write it almost as rapidly as I could read it. My hard work is done while walking alone, or while playing patience, over which game the whole story unrolls in orderly sequence, as a rule. But frequently after beginning a story I find a better way to do it, and I have destroyed as much as sixty thousand words and then gone back to my solitaire and planned it afresh.
Anne O'Hagan: I map it out more or less before I begin to write. Not on paper, but in my mind. That is, I have a pretty clearly defined notion of what I believe the outcome of the experiences they will undergo will have upon my chief characters. I never write a story in pieces to be joined together, although once or twice, when I have laid aside a story because it wouldn't live at all, I have found after a time that I needed either an introductory chapter or an interjected one to make my characters real. I do a good deal of revision, more in verbal detail than in arrangement.
Grant Overton: I do not map the story out in advance. I let it tell itself as I write it. I write it, beginning at the beginning and work it out to the end. The end may not be at all in mind when I begin. I do all my work, practically, on the first draft and revise only once and then very lightly. I aim to get it right the first time, even if that means going slowly.
Sir Gilbert Parker: Character, then plot, then as a whole, and the end is always in my mind from the first. Constant revision.